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Commercially Unskippable: Power of Super Bowl Ads

(Below is a manuscript snippet of my book, Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards. Please subscribe to the mailing list on the right to order the book when it launches. This post may be moved into a Premium Area after a certain period of time).

Commercially Unskippable: Power of Super Bowl Ads

Another system that has successfully implemented Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity is the iconic Super Bowl championship of American Football – however, I’m not talking about the game itself.

Super Bowl commercials have generated a strong reputation for being very creative, funny, and interesting. Even people who don’t like to watch football want to catch the Super Bowl commercials because it’s well-known that companies had to pay millions of dollars just to snag a 30-second spot. With such a high price tag, it’s expected that the commercials will be high quality and shareworthy too.

Super Bowl commercials even receive attention from big media sites such as Yahoo! and Google which upload snippets of each commercial immediately after they’re aired.

This is very unique because for most of the time, television viewers purposely try to avoid commercials — some even pay to receive programming that allows them to skip commercials entirely.

However, because of the suspense factor, instead of turning the channel away from the commercials, people are tuning in to watch them. And because these ads are seen by millions of people, the National Football League can continue to charge high prices for their Super Bowl commercial spots.

Make your experiences suspenseful and unpredictable, and users will make sure they don’t miss what you launch next.

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